Hormone replacement therapy and breast carcinoma risk in Hispanic and non-Hispanic women

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) alleviates menopausal symptoms and prevents osteoporosis, but there is concern that long-term use may have an adverse impact on breast carcinoma risk. Epidemiologic studies report inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between HRT and postmenopausal breast carcinoma risk and there is little information on the HRT-associated risk among minority women.

To investigate the effects of HRT on breast carcinoma risk among Hispanic women, we examined data from the New Mexico Women's Health Study (NMWHS), a statewide case-control study comprising 366 postmenopausal women with breast carcinoma and 403 controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).

After adjustment for sociodemographic, medical, and reproductive factors, we found an increased risk associated with long-term users of estrogen replacement therapy (ERT; OR for ERT use longer than 140 months was 2.57, 95%CI, 1.25-5.28, compared with ERT use shorter than 17 months). In addition, there was a positive trend with the duration of ERT use (P < 0.01). Hispanic postmenopausal women appeared to be at a significantly greater risk than non-Hispanic white women (OR for ERT use longer than 140 months in Hispanics was 5.53, 95%CI, 1.47-20.87; OR in non-Hispanics was 2.65, 95%CI, 0.95-7.34, compared with ERT use shorter than 17 months). In contrast, no significant association was observed for combined estrogen-progesterone use in either Hispanic or non-Hispanic women.

The results of this study indicated that postmenopausal women had significantly increased breast carcinoma risk for long-term ERT use. The risks among Hispanic women were substantially higher than among non-Hispanic white women although they were not statistically significant.